New governor to live in Springfield, while family remains in Chicago

Excuse me for thinking it a non-issue in terms of recent reports that Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker says he intends to live in the Illinois capital city while serving in office.

PRITZKER: Moving to Springfield

The state does, after all, provide an official residence for the governor – the Executive Mansion, located one block away from the Capitol building in Springfield.

IN FACT, THE state in recent years performed significant renovations on the governor’s mansion, with some people going so far as to point out rather sarcastically that soon-to-be former Gov. Bruce Rauner kicked in some of his own money for the project, just to improve a house for his successor.

As though that makes the current governor the ultimate sucker!

But Pritzker says he’ll move to Springfield, although he admits his wife and two sons will remain in Chicago – they’re still in school and he doesn’t want to disrupt their lives, he says. Besides, the mansion is actually a series of formal ballrooms, with a private quarters on the top floor. Basically, it’s an over-glorified apartment.

Which is a fact I’m sure will manage to offend many of the people whom Pritzker was probably hoping to pacify with his residential announcement. Because there are people who are going to think anything short of the entire Pritzker family loading up the moving van to haul their belongings to Springfield is nothing more than a snub of the Illinois capital.

A Lincoln Park resident while governor

IT IS ONE of the laughable issues I recall from my days as a Springfield-based correspondent – downstate people convinced that everything had to be based downstate, and who resented those state agencies that maintained significant Chicago presences.

These are the people who were bothered by former Govs. James Thompson living with his wife and kid in a Lincoln Park neighborhood mansion, Rod Blagojevich eventually trying to run the entire state from a private office he maintained in his Ravenswood Manor neighborhood home, and Pat Quinn only occasionally staying in the mansion when not at home in the Austin neighborhood.

He rarely left Ravenswood Manor

Of course, even Jim Edgar wound up having a home in the Springfield suburbs (the “log house,” a home done up in a log cabin motif), while also maintaining an apartment in downtown Chicago for those days when his work brought him to the city.

If anything, George Ryan may have been the recent governor who made the best effort to get around the state – living in a Chicago apartment, the mansion in Springfield and spending weekends at his family home in Kankakee.

A West Sider (Austin neighborhood)

MEANING HE’D MAKE a complete circle around Illinois every single week!

As for Pritzker, he’ll use the mansion as a job-related residence, although we probably should expect he’ll be making many back-and-forth trips between Chicago and Springfield.

Which will bother those who want to think Illinois centers around Springfield – even though I’d argue the realities of the modern world mean we probably should have governors who are mobile and traveling about the state. The idea that he’s supposed to sit behind a desk inside the Capitol and never leave Springfield would be evidence of a governor not doing his job.

RAUNER: Helped renovate the mansion

Just as it can be argued that having a governor like Blagojevich who would have preferred never to have left his house was evidence alone that the job was not being done properly back in his gubernatorial era.

WHAT AMAZES ME is that some people will be willing to make an issue of all this – either that the governor never spends time in Springfield, or else is there far too often and neglecting the rest of the state’s needs.

RYAN: Actually lived around Ill.

You’d think with all the issues, financial and social, that confront Illinois government these days, there’d be far more important things for people to concern them about.

But then again, some people will want to find something to gripe about – no matter what.

Just as they’ll want to move along to the other statewide constitutional officers, who are required by law to maintain a residence in Springfield – even though the state makes no provision for their own housing. Just think how they’d moan if the state budget also included provisions for, say, an Illinois attorney general mansion?

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Evidence of time’s passage; Gov. Ryan gets his dues, What about Blagojevich?

Some people are going to be determined to go to their deathbeds shrieking and screaming about how corrupt George Ryan was, how abhorrent his time as Illinois governor was, and how we can “never forget!” the wrongs he did upon us.

RYAN: To be included in Kankakee tribute

But time really has a way of making everything wither away with its passage.

I COULDN’T HELP but notice the officials in Kankakee who recently approved erection of a new memorial on the grounds of the county courthouse – it’s meant to pay tribute to the three local men who later went on to become governor of Illinois.

Those three will include Ryan – who managed to offend many conservative ideologues with his one-term performance as governor, but who committed acts while serving as Illinois secretary of state that eventually got him into legal trouble and resulted in him serving a six-year stint at the work camp that is part of the federal correctional center in Terre Haute, Ind.

The monument itself would actually be paid for by the Woman’s Club of Kankakee, but governmental approval was needed to put it on public property.

Some people locally are upset, but it seems a majority is more than willing to move on and accept the fact that Ryan served a term – and is one of the few local (from Kankakee) residents to ever be Illinois’ chief executive.

SMALL: When last time you heard his name?

AS FURTHER EVIDENCE that time passing manages to assuage everything and everyone, I haven’t heard anyone make mention of the fact that another person whose name will be on the monument – Len Small from 1921 to 1929 – also had legal issues during his time as governor.

Small actually went on trial for actions occurring when he was state treasurer (embezzlement, as in state funds were deposited into a phony bank account), but he was acquitted.

Although there were tales of how that acquittal came about solely because of jury tampering – as in several members of the Small jury later were given government jobs.

But that’s nearly a century ago. I’m sure all who could remember are long gone. And perhaps those still living are wondering if it’s their mind fizzling out.

SHAPIRO: Replaced a corrupt pol?

ALTHOUGH IF YOU want to get technical, the third person to be put on the Kankakee monument (Samuel Shapiro, from 1968-69) also could have a taint of scandal.

Not that Shapiro himself did anything suspect. But he was the man who finished out the gubernatorial term of Otto Kerner – who gave up his Executive Mansion post to become a federal judge. Which is what he was when federal prosecutors went after him on criminal charges.

Quite a colorful contribution of characters to Illinois’ story, even though if you listen to certain people, it is only the city of Chicago proper that contributes all of the taint to Illinois’ public reputation.

Yet now it will be reduced to a few lines of type etched into stone, one that most likely will merely give off the impression of three “local boys made good” that Kankakee residents of future years will look at for a second or two – before moving on to other pressing business of the future.

A THOUGHT THAT I’m sure will thoroughly offend those people determined to think of George Ryan as the guy who “set all the criminals free” when he took his acts that essentially abolished capital punishment in Illinois.

BLAGOJEVICH: Will his day EVER come?

Preferring to remember instead those secretary of state employees who essentially sold commercial driver’s licenses to the highest bidder; and tried justifying it on the grounds that Ryan put so much pressure on them to buy tickets to fundraising events that they needed the extra money.

Perhaps it all will be forgotten someday, except for certain people who make a point of memorizing the details of every bit of trivia they can burn into their brains.

Just one point to ponder – will this ultimately become the outcome for Rod Blagojevich? Or is his “f---ing golden” line significant enough to warrant him a sense of eternal political infamy?

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EXTRA: BossMadigan.com attacks getting lamer and lamer on Kennedy

I’m starting to wonder if the Illinois Republican Party really fears the idea of Chris Kennedy (the son of Bobby and nephew to JFK) running for Illinois governor because they know (but won’t admit) that many people in this state can’t stand the incumbent.

Bruce Rauner has a personal fortune that he spent to get himself elected in the first place, and now seems determined to do it again – particularly by turning the 2018 election cycle into a symbolic brawl between himself and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago.

THAT WOULD EXPLAIN the many petty, trite attacks on Democrats living outside of Chicago, all of which are virtually alike, in that Rauner wants to isolate Chicago from the rest of Illinois.

It’s the only way he wins. If Chicago does wind up taking an interest in the election for governor two years from now, then he loses his re-election bid.

Lately, the Illinois GOP has been sending me (and many others) copies of these attacks – the latest of which on Tuesday once again goes after the idea of Kennedy (who for many years was the manager of the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, a Kennedy family-owned property).

This one reminds us of the high regard many people hold the Kennedy family (particularly Uncle Jack), and says Chris has disrespected the family name.

“INSTEAD OF FOLLOWING in their footsteps, Chris Kennedy chose to serve corrupt politicians like Mike Madigan,” said Illinois Republican spokesman Steven Yaffe.

I’m actually kind of surprised by that line of attack. I would have thought the Republicans would have accused Chris Kennedy of following in the family footsteps. Because, after all, the Republicans who still haven’t gotten over Richard Nixon’s 1960 loss to John Kennedy are usually the ones who claim that the Cook County Democratic organization stole that election.

In the form of Mayor (and Dem Chairman) Richard J. Daley managing to “steal” enough votes to ensure that Illinois went for the Democrats that year in the Electoral College.

The crooked Chicago Machine working once again to rob the people of this state on behalf of a Kennedy! Which the Illinois Republican Party is now, with their latest advertising spot, is indirectly praising as a family (including Uncle Ted, as well) of statesmen.

YEAH IT’S A lame argument. It’s totally stupid! It makes little to no sense. Anybody with a brain would see that.

But it’s no more pathetic than many of the other accusations the Illinois Republican Party has already spewed on behalf of an election cycle nearly 23 months off in the future. And Republican political operatives are counting on the fact that people won't pay attention to the details of their "attacks," just the general outline of slime being spewed.

Nor the more vicious arguments and talking points we’re going to be verbally assaulted with in the next two years. To the point that it might be enough to get me away from watching television at all – so as to avoid being slathered in stupidity!

Now one should not presume I’m backing Kennedy for governor. I don’t have a clue. I haven’t given it much thought, particularly because Kennedy has a past track record of talking himself up as a political candidate without actually going through the process of running for office.

BESIDES, THERE’S ALWAYS the chance that someone else of significance could come along to challenge Rauner – whose defeat would be a Democratic priority just as many Republicans would love to see anybody but Madigan as a legislative leader.

It’s all about partisan crud. We’re in for an ugly brawl – perhaps all the more if J.B. Pritzker and his family fortune (the Hyatt hotels) wind up turning this into a brawl between the billionaires.

Particularly if either one of them were to try to pretend to have even the least bit of comprehension about what working people endure in their lives.

Then have it topped off with doses of rhetorical nonsense such as we’re now hearing about Kennedy and Madigan. I’m reaching for the ear plugs right about now.

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EXTRA: Cook is hardball w/ softball

The Cook County Board had serious issues (cremation instead of burial for the indigent, constitution of the Metra commuter rail board) on its agenda Wednesday.

Yet what was it that seemed to generate the most enthusiasm amongst the officials who represent Illinois’ largest county?

SOFTBALL. OR SHOULD I say a gold-colored cup filled with a ratty-looking, dinged up ball that was put on display as the “trophy” won by the Cook County softball team.

For the past three years, the team consisting of staffers from various county government agencies has played games against other government-inspired teams.

Such as the Illinois governor, the mayor and the City Council of Chicago (separate teams, you wouldn’t expect them to play together?). The city treasurer. Heck, even the Chicago-based staff of the federal government’s General Accounting Office.

County officials passed a resolution declaring themselves the champions for the third straight year of this competition – pointing out that in three seasons, they are undefeated.

AS IN 20-0 since 2011.

Not bad, although I wonder what would happen if Cook County were to take on one of the teams from the Illinois Legislature – where the state Senate and House of Representatives take each other on annually for some of the most intense sporting bragging rights ever claimed.

WHITE: Never could top Ernie Banks

Or if an Illinois secretary of state team containing one-time Chicago Cubs minor leaguer Jesse White himself (who’s more athletic at age 78 than most people are in their prime) were to take on the county ballplayers?

But it seems that the county will keep at their play – county Board President Toni Preckwinkle says she plans to take the field in 2014 along with her colleagues.

ALTHOUGH COUNTY COMMISSIONER Deborah Sims, D-Chicago, said she was skeptical anybody would be willing to play against Cook ever again.

PRECKWINKLE: Wants to play

“I’d advise you not to win so much, or nobody will want to play with you,” she quipped.

And Preckwinkle had the final say; claiming the cup on display at the county board meeting ought to be treated like the Stanley Cup (which goes on tour so the fans can see it, up close).

“Everybody gets this cup for an hour,” she snapped.

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